Productivity Systems Overhaul, Part 2: Apps and Systems

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Morning Rituals

Getting to bed earlier has had a very profound effect on my productivity systems and productivity in general 1.

For instance, today is Saturday. I went to bed at 10:56 PM on Friday night and woke up at 4:44 AM, rested and ready to go. Granted, by 7 AM I was tired again 2 but I did what I have been doing for a few months now, when I don’t slip up:

  • 8 AM Get up
  • 8:05 Drink water
  • 8:30 Shower
  • 9:00 Eat a good breakfast
  • 9:30 Listen to a podcast/book
  • 10 Get a coffee
  • 10:05 Read a few pages of a book
  • 10:45 Check out OmniFocus and Fantastical
  • 11 Begin work for the day

Getting to bed earlier and getting up earlier has allowed me more time to write, flesh out programming projects, edit old blog posts, do research, eat, and clean up around the apartment.

Just this small change has helped me be super productive. Figuring out a morning ritual was key to being able to write code, write blog posts, research my book projects, and get cleaned up, and ready for any task or learning I needed to do throughout the day. Simple, yet you won’t believe how hard it is to implement after years of listless and unstructured days.

Figuring Out My Tools

In the Mac Power Users Facebook Group, Chris Upchurch posted a link to his blog talking about inventorying his tools.

I found the concept interesting and decided to do the same.

This list is comprehensive: most of the apps listed here I use in some form throughout my daily life 3. I want to take the time here to assess the tools, and give you some suggestions on what you can do to take stock of your digital productivity systems

Already Use Frequently:

  • Chrome
  • IDEs and Text Editors
  • Terminals
  • Evernote
  • OmniFocus
  • Fantastical 2
  • Ulysses
  • Alfred
  • Google Drive/Docs
  • Dropbox
  • Clean My Mac
  • BetterTouchTool
  • CheatSheet
  • RescueTime
  • 1Password
  • Slack

Would Like to Use More Frequently:

  • Day One
  • Droplr
  • Feedly
  • Keyboard Maestro
  • Hemingway
  • Grammarly
  • MindNode
  • OmniOutliner
  • Scrivener
  • Reeder
  • TaskPaper
  • Studies
  • nvAlt
  • Paws for Trello
  • SuperTab
  • Byword
  • Dash (Developer Documentation)
  • Duet Display
  • Gitter (Open Source Slack-like client)
  • MediumDesk
  • DEVONthink Pro Office

Apps to Cut Down on Using

  • Airmail
  • Gmail
  • Tweetbot
  • App for WhatsApp

I think if you look at this list, you get a sense of where my priorities are, from the bottom up 4.

I tend to use social and email apps more than general productivity apps. I am spending less time on social media altogether, but could really cut back on my use of Facebook and Twitter.

The apps I would like to use more frequently include some reading apps. Maybe that might be considered a distraction, but as I currently use them for news, I think opening them in the morning and looking through them isn’t too bad. Sometimes I need to keep up with developer news and tutorials so these apps come in handy.

What’s interesting here is that the apps you use to get real work done are apps I want to use more frequently 5. This doesn’t surprise me as I am/was a huge procrastinator. Taking time to figure out what I am supposed to be doing and when has really helped with this. I am hoping to have usage of these apps sort of like my Alfred statistics 6 :

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What You Can Do to Take Inventory of Your Tools

Have a look in your Applications folder. List them in the order that you use them. Try to assess which ones you use the most, that you’d like to use more or less, and ones you should delete.

I tend to hang on to apps, especially if I paid a lot of money for them. Sometimes, it’s best just to keep the installer and put the license inside of 1Password, and call it a day 7.

Anything you’d add? Leave me a comment. Tell me how you’re going about using your productivity systems during your day.

  1. It is really rough with the double whammy of insomnia and sleep apnea which makes me very tired during the day. ↩

  2. That damned sleep apnea ↩

  3. Most of them, anyway ↩

  4. Kind of backwards, I know. ↩

  5. Scrivener, Byword, MediumDesk for writing articles for publications, etc. ↩

  6. Well, maybe not that much. ↩

  7. Unless you bought from the Mac App Store. ↩

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